Lydia slammed the car door shut and watched as Elena ran up to whom she presumed was Damon, because if it wasn't then the way she was kissing this man was not appropriate. Katherine pulled up behind them and didn't seem pleased to come face to face with her ex. It must be hard for her to see her exact replica with one of the men she had loved and know that she would never have that.

Ten hours in a car with Elena had filled her in on the goings-on of Mystic Fall. Sure, Lydia had known the strategic maneuvers that had been taken but it was another thing to know how they had affected her distant cousin. Aware of the touch decisions Elena had been forced to make, like burning down her childhood home, frustrated Lydia. The plan had always been to find a way to end the Petrova curse and free Tatia's descendants from being at Klaus's -lack of- mercy.

Katherine moved to stand next to Lydia. "This isn't what we had planned. Working with Elena is only going to keep us from doing what needs to be done. She's not as morally flexible as we are."

"Being morally flexible is what got her brother and everyone else she loved killed. My family knew when they began working with you that we would make sure that Klaus's attention was only on the first branch in order to keep him from getting what he wanted, but I didn't want Elena to suffer like this," Lydia said. "She's as much my family as you are. We need to protect her."

"Why do you think I made sure that I was the one to find the cure. They don't know what it can do for us-"

"And whose fault is that? This is it, Katherine. We've made it to the last phase of our plan. My mother, grandmother and back as far as my line has existed have planned rigorously for this. We can't take anymore chances. She needs to know. They all do," Lydia said and strode toward Elena as the new vampire waved for her and Katherine to follow.

Caroline and Bonnie stared daggers at the new comers as they listened to Elena explain why she had disappeared for a day. Slowly, Elena told the group about how the Petrova family tree had split off into several other lines and were also cursed to produce one of Tatia's doppelgangers every five hundred years, shocking them with the knowledge that somewhere out there another teenage girl wore Elena's face.

"But that would mean that Klaus would be able to make more hybrids," Caroline worried, especially since her boyfriend Tyler had been forced to leave Mystic Falls.

"Only if he knows," Lydia interjected. "If we can finish what we started and use the cure then the curse will be lifted from the entire Petrova family tree and Klaus will never be able to create more hybrids ever again."

"Then why not give Elena the cure," Bonnie asked. "If you have it and it will lift the curse-"

"Giving Elena the Cure won't break the curse," Katherine groaned, "I thought you would be smarter seeing as you're a Bennett witch. Emily is rolling over in her grave," Katherine muttered.

"Then why did you steal it," Stefan asked, brows arching as his eyes bore into Katherine's.

"Have any of you actually thought to ask what a doppelganger is? No? Nobody?" Katherine turned to Lydia as if to say 'It's your turn' and sat down, seemingly disinterested in where this conversation was going.

Lydia shook her head at the other girl's antics. "A doppelganger is more than just an exact physical replica of the original," she explained, "each doppelganger shares a piece of the original's soul. Katherine, Elena, all of the others; they're all a piece of Tatia. Katherine was the first and as such her soul -incomplete because the part that was born into her was literally ripped from Tatia's- remembered what it was like to be savagely murdered. That's why her survival instinct is magnified. Because they're only a fraction of the original soul, each doppelganger portrays or inherits one of Tatia's personality characteristics and it becomes magnified. For Elena it's her moral code."

"And there have been other doppelgangers," Caroline asked.

"One previously, between Elena and Katherine," Lydia was looking at Elena and said, "and another one who is currently living. We knew Klaus would be keeping an eye on Katherine's line and since it hadn't been discovered that the line had split we could keep the other doppelgangers safe from Klaus."

"What were their names," Bonnie asked.

"Nadia was the second doppelganger who followed me," Katherine said. "Lived to a ripe old age before dying in her sleep. The one whose alive now is Amelia."

"Where is she," Damon asked.

"Tucked away for safe keeping," Elena said. "The important part isn't about the other doppelgangers, it's about what we need to do with the cure."

"It sounds like we're going to need a lot of magic," Bonnie said.

Lydia got up to fill her beverage, "Oh, don't you worry little witch, there's no way I'm letting you mess this up."

"Excuse me," Bonnie said furiously as Damon snickered in the background and Stefan hit him hard on the back to get him to stop. "Sorry," Stefan lied, "I thought you might be choking on your tongue."

"Listen," Lydia said condescendingly, "I've heard all about you and how you came into your powers a couple of years ago and think that just because you're a Bennett witch that you're oh so powerful while you sit around making judgment calls on everyone else sitting in this room, as if you were the epitome of moral aptitude," Lydia gave her a look to say 'As if' and sat back in her seat next to Elena. "Then you go and lose your powers because just like everyone else in the room knows, the spirits realized just how sketchy your morals are and how you're not fit to have them. And if that's not enough you start dabbling in expression. You're like a junky who keeps going back for more even after you overdosed and nearly got yourself killed. You can't handle magic and the fact that you think you can just shows how messed up you are."

Caroline looked like she was ready to take Lydia's throat out while Bonnie was staring intently at Lydia. "Really," Lydia asked. "You're going to try to give me an aneurysm because you don't like the way I talked to you? How pathetic," Lydia said. "You really are delusional if you think you're the moral high ground here and if you want to give someone an aneurysm you have to have more skill, like this," Lydia said and Bonnie fell to the floor while Elena and Caroline rushed to her side.

"Enough Lydia, you made your point," Katherine told her. "I don't want to have to hear her whine about it for the next couple of weeks."

Lydia released Bonnie and the girl struggled to get up. "I still don't understand why she's here," Lydia said. "She's a liability to the whole operation."

Caroline and Stefan began to argue when Elena whistled to get everyone's attention. "Lydia is right. We've all had to struggle with something; blood lust, power corrupting us. But we've all gotten through it and so will Bonnie. As long as she takes this time to get some perspective." Turning to Bonnie, Elena stared at her best friend. "I think you need to stop practicing for now."

"No, Elena. I won't stop, not when you need me," Bonnie argued.

"But we don't need you," Elena said. "You have a history of going off the rails and changing the plans to accommodate yourself and we can't deal with that drama, Bonnie. Besides, Lydia is better trained and knows what she's doing. If Katherine trusts her as her number one witch then so do I."

"Elena, no," Bonnie begged, "I just need to know how to lift the curse and we can do this without trusting them. You know how dangerous Katherine is, do you really think you can trust her? I have control, you can trust me to-"

"To what," Elena suddenly cried, "to get my brother killed, Bonnie, because that's what you did. As sure as Katherine sacrificed him, you led him there," the vampire raged, "because you trusted Shane and clearly your instincts are terrible!"

Everyone stared at her in shock as Elena sped from the room.